


Apocrypha Sundered

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Hermaeus Mora - Freeform, apocrypha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: Julienne comes crashing down from the summit of Apocrypha.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Marcurio
Kudos: 4





	Apocrypha Sundered

Crackling like a storm of pages, spines of books cast to the winds, the most dreadful cacophony of ink and words, and all of it meaningless; as if there was knowledge on the winds, as if when one went for it, it flew from one’s grasp, and one was left despairing in a raging pit of unknowing; I could not bear it, this noise, this noise which I thought I might grasp, if I only read harder, if I reached – 

Storm of pages, spines cracking, maleficent storyteller at his finale, the last page, folding, folding, infinite, nothing –

And then the wind dropped, became salt-speckled; and there was behind the awful noise the song of a snow-bunting; I put out a hand, an ink-stained hand, for the unmarked pages of reality. 

_ He is defeated? _ I heard, somewhere. – Did not know who, who asked, who was defeated: only that I had defeated, and was defeated. There had been so many  _ words _ , in Apocrypha, and now there was but one,  _ defeated _ , and my mind gave me that alone, upon shifting, rebellious images. 

‘Julienne,’ said Marcurio, clasped my hand, did not mind that it was wet with bloody ink.

And then I was anchored, and out, and I had won.

I had won: ‘I have defeated Miraak,’ I said, to him, and to Frea beyond him; ‘I do not… I do not know what of Hermaeus Mora… I defied him, even at the end, I said I would not serve him, I –’

‘And yet you live,’ said Frea.

‘I prayed that Kynareth save me,’ I said: ‘and Akatosh, I – I –’

‘Sssh,’ said Marcurio, ‘it’s all right, it’s all over now.’

‘All over,’ I repeated, and burst into tears.

There was yet before my eyes some vague remnant of the nightmare, though the ink had all but gone, and the words like whispering; Frea took my other hand, steadied me. I heard in swift rustling vernacular some appeal to the All-Maker, and took solace in this other language, which Hermaeus Mora had not had time to taint; took solace in the Aedra, in whatever forms they might take. 

‘I thought I was defeated, too,’ I said, breathless.

‘You are safe,’ replied Frea: and there was a glow upon her face quite beyond whatever had come before; her prayer lingering, and the divine in her words, which closed the book and took up the narration and changed its path – divine words, which sung of the defeat, and my survival!


End file.
